Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

Another day. Another day where, apart from the hour successfully doing an escape room with the in laws, I was a mental head case (headcase?) being too afraid to even speak really.

True to my desire to never inconvenience anyone, I discretely had a major panic attack on the walk home with the boy and his sister and as soon as I got home I fell to the floor and started crying.

The trouble was I had to go into the town centre, and that terrifies me. There are just too many damn humans for my liking. People are like buses (I hate buses) there are too many ‘variables’.

My father in law is the world’s most anxious car passenger and will frequently scream ‘CAR!’ in regards to a car about half a mile away.

I have realised I do this with people when walking. I see someone ahead of me and panic about what way they are going to step and whether I can get around them and as a result I spend 90% of my walking life doing random parallel synchronicity with strangers.

My beloved Haruki Murakami gave me the title for this blog post. I think it is one of the few quotes I could get tattooed and know its meaning to me will never die.

I can either choose to suffer or I can try and get a grip and move on.

The future looks bleak. There is no way around it, I need counselling. I need to pay off my debts. Paying for both of those eliminates monies for socialising.

But it is amazing how good you can feel after going on the exercise bike for 80 minutes, spending half of that time on the hardest resistance setting too!

Getting help for my mental health is a necessity.

Paying off my debts is a necessity.

Drinking happy hour cocktails is great fun, but I will not die if I have to go without it.

I’m not saying I should unduly suffer for my debt sins, but considering I got into debt because I was too busy smoking/drinking/shopping/partying/gigging in the past, maybe it is ‘debt justice’ that my social life is paying for it now.